By Laura Lane
Both companies planned to adjourn the hearing until Jan. 24 at 3 p.m. It was to be adjourned ³so that Cingular Wireless can conduct a study at an alternate site, off Merrick Road at the Town of Hempstead garbage transfer station,² explained Joe Baker, president of the South Merrick Civic Association. ³They said that if they can't use this site, they'll continue to pursue the original spot atop the NCG building.²
Verizon approached the town two years ago, seeking to build a cell tower at the transfer station, which is just south of Merrick Road and a quarter-mile east of the Meadowbrook Parkway. At the time, some residents opposed the proposal, as did the Merrick School District. Hearing of the community's opposition, the town decided not to allow Verizon to consider the site, and the cellular company withdrew its proposal.
The possibility of moving the Cingular and Omnipoint antennas to the transfer station "is all very preliminary," said Susie Trenkle, a Town of Hempstead spokeswoman. "At this point, the location is a moot point unless we find out that the cellular company would want to place a tower there. The town attorney's office has reached out to the Merrick School District, but has not succeeded in contacting them yet."
Trenkle added that there is not an agreement in place for the town to site a tower at the transfer station.
Dr. Ranier Melucci, the Merrick School District superintendent, said he was unaware that T-Mobile had proposed placing an additional 12 cell-phone antennas on the Merrick Road building, which is roughly a quarter-mile from Levy-Lakeside Elementary School.
Melucci said he had attended a previous Board of Zoning Appeals hearing regarding the NCG building, which was adjourned. He had brought along several letters from community members who had written to him to voice their dissatisfaction with the proposed Merrick Road location.
Melucci was also unaware that the garbage transfer station was under consideration. "We had written letters objecting to that site two years ago," he said. "If we objected to it two years ago, why would we agree to it now? The only calls I received [concerning the recently proposed cell antennas] were from a Joseph Ra [the Town of Hempstead attorney], and although I called him back, we were never able to actually speak."
The cell phone antennas proposed by Cingular at the NCG building would be 10 feet tall and enclosed in a box. Kate Mackinnon, a Cingular spokeswoman, said she was unsure how tall the cell tower would be at the garbage transfer station, but she agreed that it would be taller than 10 feet.
Cingular plans to test the garbage transfer station to see whether it would fit the company's needs. "We'll bring a crane to the area and make it as high as a cell site should be and put our antennas on top to actually test this area," said Ellen Webner, a Cingular spokeswoman. "If it works, we'll be more than happy to change our antenna proposal to this area. And the hearing has been adjourned, so we do have time to conduct the tests."
There was concern two years ago regarding the garbage transfer station site. Some residents believed that an interaction between methane gas from "Mt. Merrick," a former landfill rising more than 100 feet on the southeastern portion of the town property, and radio-frequency radiation from a cell tower might be harmful.
Extensive Internet research done recently by the Herald turned up only one reference to methane gas from former landfills and cell towers, on the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Web site. The department's solid-waste management program approved the development of several structures at former landfill sites, including cell phone towers.
New York state Department of Environmental Conservation representatives agreed that erecting a cell tower near a former landfill would be safe. "It isn't uncommon for cell towers to be located near solid-waste facilities," said Bill Fonda, a DEC spokesman. "Our only concern would be that any tower not be placed on the fill area or the capped area of the landfill."
Town officials said that the methane vents atop Mt. Merrick are 115 to 120 feet in the air, and are more than 1,500 feet from where a proposed cell tower would be.
Baker believes that the new information uncovered by the Herald, and confirmed by the DEC, might help convince the community that the garbage transfer station is a viable location. "I think the methane/radio-frequency radiation interaction issue was all hype at that time, a scare tactic," Baker said.
He added that the new location would be better for the community since it would not be located near homes and a school. "If the alternate site is chosen and approved, we'll have one pole that can entertain maybe three carriers, which makes sense," Baker said. "Of course you'll have people that will say that they don't want cellular antennas period, but they¹re the same people walking around with cell phones."
Comments about this story? LLane@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
